I disabled comments a while back because of the spam issues from gambling and porn sites, but noticed that 10% of my traffic was to inbound links to some poker site comments that I hadn't deleted.

The inbound linking is to game Google into indirectly boosting pagerank for the eventual destination using clustered keyword terms, a more sophisticated variant of placing outbound links in comments.

The traffic came from what appear to be affiliates of a CPA affiliate program site, 888.com, which in turn linked to poker sites that were owned by the same company as 888.com, operating out of the UK's Gibraltar.

These companies are owned by Cassava Enterprises, who, one might imagine, are a small, shady company, operating offshore.

However, it turns out that Cassava Enterprises are in the process of going public in the UK for an estimated $1.5 billion, underwritten by Credit Suisse First Boston.

See the Sunday Times article below:

Poker firm float flushed out - Sunday Times - Times Online

"Similarly, Cassava Enterprises, owner of the 888.com site, has hired CSFB to advise it on a possible flotation. It is reported to be considering a listing that would value the business at more than £800m."

There are a number of reputable betting sites about to go public, but it seems odd that the illegal (since it costs me time and money) practice of spamming leads to companies planning to go public alongside a bunch of sketchy porn sites.

Since Cassava own the affiliate program that may have clients who are doing the spamming, if or when they have knowledge of it they will be obligated to act.

If, in turn, a significant number of 888.com affiliates are using pagerank gaming techniques via site spamming, then wiping out those affiliates could dramatically affect their revenues and hence the IPO price.

Imagine if Amazon, planning to IPO, had been involved directly or even indirectly with using mass spamming for its marketing, or if a significant portion of their revenues was based upon affiliates that were operating fraudulently, without them knowing. Is that what is happening here?